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International launches online forum

International Truck has debuted UPNEXT, featuring UPNEXTtrucking.com, an online forum designed for people across trucking to discuss topics that are driving change in the industry.

“Our industry is undergoing an unprecedented amount of change,” Heather Street, Navistar’s Senior Director for Marketing Strategy & Brand told MRO. “Technology is an enabler for a lot of this change which is going to provide tremendous benefits to anyone in the industry; whether that’s driving efficiencies from a financial perspective, from a productivity standpoint, [increased] safety, or reducing the carbon footprint. The idea isn’t necessarily for us to be driving that change but for us to facilitate that conversation. We play a pretty significant role in driving this change, but we know that we can’t do it alone. We have relationships with the stakeholders, all of which play a role in driving change.”

Street said that the genesis for UPNEXT was to bring all stakeholders together to have those conversations about what needs to happen to accelerate the progress on such key topics such as autonomous trucks, blockchain, digital supply chain, electrification and platooning.

“We’re capturing a lot of what the industry has been talking about,” Lyndi McMillan, Navistar’s Senior Communications Manager told MRO. “Electrification has been a hot topic for the last year. … We want to look not just at the engineering, but at the infrastructure and the regulations.”

UPNEXTtrucking.com will include Navistar-generated content as well as third-party curated content.

“We are integrating social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn and we are bringing in subject matter experts to help facilitate some of those conversations,” Street said. “We will be having two-way conversations on the site in weeks to come. Those are conversations that need to happen throughout the industry. The site will drive engagement. It’s a platform to hold those discussions. We are inviting anyone who plays a role in these key topics [including competitors] to submit content.”

The website currently contains white papers from International as well as curated content from other sources, including the media and industry thought leaders.